GPT-5.1 vs Ministral 3 8B

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

GPT-5.1 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 80 to 32. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

GPT-5.1's sharpest advantage is in multimodal & grounded, where it averages 91.8 against 32.4. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMLU, 97 to 28.

GPT-5.1 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $1.50 input / $6.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Ministral 3 8B. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. GPT-5.1 is the reasoning model in the pair, while Ministral 3 8B is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. GPT-5.1 gives you the larger context window at 200K, compared with 128K for Ministral 3 8B.

Quick Verdict

Pick GPT-5.1 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 8B only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Agentic

GPT-5.1

GPT-5.1

75.8

Ministral 3 8B

28.9

78
Terminal-Bench 2.0
26
79
BrowseComp
36
71
OSWorld-Verified
27

Coding

GPT-5.1

GPT-5.1

66.2

Ministral 3 8B

14.2

89
HumanEval
23
68
SWE-bench Verified
16
61
LiveCodeBench
15
71
SWE-bench Pro
13

Multimodal & Grounded

GPT-5.1

GPT-5.1

91.8

Ministral 3 8B

32.4

94
MMMU-Pro
27
89
OfficeQA Pro
39

Reasoning

GPT-5.1

GPT-5.1

88.4

Ministral 3 8B

36.1

93
SimpleQA
28
91
MuSR
26
92
BBH
63
84
LongBench v2
38
84
MRCRv2
41

Knowledge

GPT-5.1

GPT-5.1

72.5

Ministral 3 8B

28

97
MMLU
28
95
GPQA
27
93
SuperGPQA
25
91
OpenBookQA
23
83
MMLU-Pro
52
27
HLE
3
84
FrontierScience
32

Instruction Following

GPT-5.1

GPT-5.1

89

Ministral 3 8B

69

89
IFEval
69

Multilingual

GPT-5.1

GPT-5.1

87.7

Ministral 3 8B

61.7

89
MGSM
63
87
MMLU-ProX
61

Mathematics

GPT-5.1

GPT-5.1

95.4

Ministral 3 8B

43.3

99
AIME 2023
30
99
AIME 2024
32
98
AIME 2025
33
95
HMMT Feb 2023
26
97
HMMT Feb 2024
28
96
HMMT Feb 2025
27
96
BRUMO 2025
29
94
MATH-500
60

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, GPT-5.1 or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5.1 is ahead overall, 80 to 32. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMLU, where the scores are 97 and 28.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, GPT-5.1 or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5.1 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 72.5 versus 28. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, GPT-5.1 or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5.1 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 66.2 versus 14.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, GPT-5.1 or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5.1 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 95.4 versus 43.3. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, GPT-5.1 or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5.1 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 88.4 versus 36.1. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, GPT-5.1 or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5.1 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 75.8 versus 28.9. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, GPT-5.1 or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5.1 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 91.8 versus 32.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, GPT-5.1 or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5.1 has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 89 versus 69. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, GPT-5.1 or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5.1 has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 87.7 versus 61.7. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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